John Biles

That makes it work all the better, then!

Given the God Learners killed the god of the island... maybe they imported the Dragonnewts in order to do that.

The Gloranthan equivalent of Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy the Silence' Heroquest got out of hand.

The Guide seems to assert that all Dragonnewts were killed off by the start of Time, except the ones in Kralorela and Dragon Pass; all the others are offshoots of that. There are 8000 Dragonnewts in Maniria (by contrast, 200,000 in Kralorela and 20,000 in Dragon PAss) If they came with Palangio, they were originally connected to the Third Council and the creation of Nysalor. They would have been part of the Dragon Pass community originally, thus the connection to the ones there now. Since they hunt all over Maniria, they probably have Dragon Paths to favored hunting grounds.

The death of both the god of Tradetalk (Issaries) and of Knowledge (Lankhor Mhy) is probably at the root of the illiteracy plague, since they both spread magical literacy.

My immediate thought is that if Argenteus is Old Elvis, Red Sister should be Patti Smith. Her 'army' becomes an army of female singers who do magic with song and dance and a lot of shouting.

I would suggest checking out the trading rules for Mystara (the BECMI D&D World) because it implements a lot of your thinking about you want trading to work. Every major city has some goods which can be bought cheaply and others which fetch a higher price than normal. So Darokin (think Renaissance Italian Cities) is a cheap place to buy common metals, common woods, grain, ivory, and textiles and a good place to sell gems, monsters, mounts, precious metals, and weapons. Soderfjord (think 12th century Scandanavia) is a good place to buy woods and grain, and a good place to sell armor and wine. And so on. The Republic of Darokin and Minrothad Guilds (for sea trade) are both pretty cheap PDFs. Then you can build similar tables for Glorantha, so that scrolls are cheaper in Pelorian cities and sell well in Esrolia, which provides plentiful grain and meat, and so on.

One of the rather unsatisfactory things in the King of Sartar ending is that after Harrek and Argath fall out... Harrek just *leaves*. Harrek is not the just leave type, he's the chop Argath into kibble and dance on his corpse if they fall out type. So he kills Argath, turns his skin into pants, steals all of Then he ruins the plan of the Trolls to flood Dragon Pass with gold and cause inflation by stealing it all. This will be important, later. Also, he skins Jar-Eel and gives all her power to Gunda. Then he convinces the Trolls they should sign up with his plan to invade and loot Peloria. Let's face it, killing Solar-aspected people is in their wheelhouse. The Screaming Murder And Theft Horde then pours north. The Praxians go with him because it's a chance to kill people and rob them. The Black Horse Troop go along to avoid becoming Harrek's underwear. Ralkazark, seeing what's coming, digs a big hole and hides until the next age. Argenteus tries to lead an army against him, but too many banana sandwiches have left him mostly useless and he is defeated and Harrek skins him and makes a red coat and a white glove out of it and gives them to a young boy, who becomes the new King of Rock and Roll. The Crimson Bat also gets skinned and becomes Harrek's boots. Gunda then convinces the dwarves that the Red Moon has to go and she has a plan. So they take all that gold, build a giant catapult and fling it at the Red Moon, which breaks up, releasing all its power across Glorantha. The Red Goddess comes forth and she and Harrek obliterate each other. Glamour and Gunda hook up and create a new, better queendom in Peloria where anyone who worships Yelm must wear ashes and live in a trash can. Okay, that was just me being ludicrous. I do think Harrek would try to chop Argath into kibble, though. I am working on a less silly idea.

Leaving aside a lot of the Issaries quests which enable people to trade better, a lot of locations have some kind of ritual component and ritual limits on trading, where, say, the Dwarves always come to the same place and offer the same deal, but you have to basically duplicate some deal from the Silver Age to make it work. The way the Castle Coast flourishes on the deals it has from the past which have to be periodically renewed.

Heroquesting is an important part of the most lucrative trading, as getting things from the Elder Races often requires it. At least to make it work right. So that's a way to link it to adventuring.

Most people's initial response to Argath is going to be 'who' until he does stuff. Later, people in Sartar won't care that Argath basically can't go five minutes without death and destruction because it's aimed at people they don't like. They're likely to assume Harrek's arrival is the universe trying to kick Dragon Pass while it's down. The day Harrek leaves and doesn't come back is probably celebrated as a holiday. There is zero proof that slaughtering everything that moves in Peloria was the only solution to the Lunar Empire or the best one. I inherently distrust and disbelieve any 'the ends justify the means' argument. So I am unconvinced that unleashing endless death and destruction was the only solution to either of these problems.

A lot of Kralorelan mysticism is probably actually theistic and sorcerous stuff clad in mystical clothing. The actual mystics withdraw to monasteries and stay there to pursue ever higher levels of spiritual insight and sometimes people consult them. They accumlate huge powers but there's an emphasis on *not using them* because they will tangle you in the world. When the Godlearners were there, they corrupted a lot of mysticism to be 'do disciplines, gain powers, hit people with them'. Where you gained a certain amount of insight, then used it to entangle yourself in the world. There is likely still a fair amount of that.

Ralzakark is able to organize broo into a controlled force that doesn't simply maraud 24-7 and rape everything that moves. HE and his broo are still terrible, but it's a lot more controlled terrible. Beat Pot Aelwin *joins the side he revolted against*. He totally abandons his revolt against the Lunars and grovels before the Red Goddess. It's like imagining Malcom X marrying a white woman and going around shooting black people. They both do change. Argath and Arkat pretty much simply become worse by being illuminated. I expect what makes them able to be genocidal maniacs is being illuminated. Illumination stripped away their conscience, leaving only the lust for blood. I have no idea who Oddi even is.

In King of Dragon Pass, you always start out in the Arfritha Vale. In King of Dragon Pass, she was a daughter of Kodig, son of Vingkot.

The Guide is waaaaaay too much for anyone who is just starting out. Great for reference but not good as an introduction.

Nysalor permanently screwed up Uz reproduction... but killed a relatively small number of UZ. The Lunars slaughtered a bunch of elves, but there's nothing stopping future elves reproducing normally.

While I know you're being sarcastic, I think there's actually an interesting way to develop this idea. The Nysalor cult comes from a society which is outside the western caste system. Riddlers taught illumination without regard for social status, possibly even for whether or not you wanted to be illuminated. There was social status in the Bright Empire... there's always social status in human groups... but it was *different* and had different rules. And Nysalor had been created to unify the nations of the Council. Arolanit is especially a place where the locals have straight-jacketed themselves into a rigid set of caste rules, but in return, they are *immortal*. In the never get old and die sense. So when the plague spreads to Arolanit, Arolanit can't cure it because it's not part of the body of tradition passed to them, their old methods don't work on it, and so they reject what the Nysaloreans offer because it would in some way require breaking caste. Indeed, it may just come down to 'accepting magic from someone outside the caste system breaks caste'. Further, these guys spread Illumination, which lets you get away with breaking caste. The Zzaburs, who are used to being high up the food chain take it badly and either correctly determine the Nysaloreans are spreading it or *just lie*. A second thought, which could go with that or could be seperate - This could be something like the Kingdom of War, where the Bright Kingdom basically is banishing everyone's shadow and the shadows are being pushed before the Empire's spread like surfers on a wave. When Nysalor died, all the banished shadow came back and everything made possible by banishing it dissolved away. So the plague was created accidentally by the Nysaloreans, who were engaged in the magical equivalent of toxic waste dumping.

I could see Belintar playing him up a little to undercut the Grandmothers. Not totally but enough to help ensure they have someone besides him to hate on.

IF you can't believe in Argrath, believe in the one who believes in Argath.

While I understand that illumination is supposed to reflect real world mysticism, the main examples we get of it are people it turns into monsters - Arkat, Nysalor and his followers, the EWF, Sheng Seleris, the Lunar experiments with Chaos.. Kralorelan mysticism has never really been developed much. The end result is that we're short on examples of illumination that don't turn you into a psychopath or make you think playing with Chaos is a good idea. Glorantha has no Buddha figures to provide a really positive example. It's all people you should probably kill on sight without pity or mercy.

Arkat was a thousand years earlier and every crazy thing is believed about him by *someone* by now. There is undoubtly someone in Dragon Pass who won't eat at Geo's because he thinks Geo was secretly Arkat. How exactly did they identify this guy as an illuminate? It isn't stamped on his forehead.

The Shakers invented the clothespin, the modern broom, and a style of furniture called Shaker furniture. Sadly, they are nigh-extinct now.

Harrek feels to me a lot like Conan, seen from the outside instead of the inside. (Except Conan wouldn't skin and wear a god) He's very much 'takes care of his followers, everyone else is prey' in attitude.

Harrek is an aimless murderhobo, but he never claims to be anything more or better than a murderhobo. No one but the Wolf Pirates regard him as a role model and they're also murderhobos. Harrek is a godawful monster, a blight upon Glorantha. But Harrek makes no pretention to anything more. Whereas, King of Sartar is one big 'ARGATH IS THE GREATEST MOST WONDERFUL PERSON EVER' propaganda piece, even though Argath commits crimes on a level that Harrek could never accomplish or even aspire to. Harrek is basically a mugger with superpowers. Argath unleashes Magical Genghis Khan (Sheng Seleris) as a diversion. Not even to accomplish his main goal but just to weaken his foes. Argath's bodycount dwarfs Harrek and in-universe sources are disgustingly smug about it. That's why Argath gets dumped on more than Harrek. He's more offensive and the scale of his crimes dwarf those of Harrek.

A Heroquest can 'prove' anything, and thus proves nothing. More precisely, once you do a Heroquest, the truths it expresses are part of the mythic reality of the community which performed it. But some other community can prove a contradictory truth by heroquesting and for them the contradiction is true. One community proves Elmal is really Yelmalio, while another one proves Yelmalio is one of Eurmal's pranks. Whether or not there's an underlying truth of 'what really happened', Heroquesting never reaches that truth, because you are *performing* a story with the freedom to change it. It's easier to make some kinds of changes than others, but a sufficiently strong community / set of questers can introduce radical changes, like proving Ernalda is actually Kygor Litor's mom.